


Some People Like When It Rains

by DJDeviation



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Alternate Universe - High School, Character Death, Domestic Violence, Eating Disorders, Explicit Language, Illegal Activities, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Self-Harm, Strong Female Characters, cause its gonna be a hell of a ride, wow boys don't take your hands off the bar for this one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 15:53:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14452632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DJDeviation/pseuds/DJDeviation
Summary: Roxas is a Junior in High School, living in a very lackluster world where it rains all the time and life has lost its flavor. His depression has never been so bad; one minute he's kicking it with his three best friends in the entire world, and the next, they're gone before he can even realize it. Even though he was expecting to spend his Junior year wasting away to nothing and ( hopefully ) dying before Senior year could bite him the ass, Axel, a redheaded stranger with fire in his eyes and an aspiration to finally be the hero of someone's story comes along. Will Axel be able to save Roxas from his past, present, and himself? Or will he drag him into something much worse?





	1. Saved or Ruined?

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: Hey all!
> 
> I haven't written on this site before but I have become the notorious harbinger of death on Fanfiction.net for not finishing ANYTHING I decide to write. Hopefully, I'm gonna break that habit with this perfect trifecta of a shitshow. But, regardless, I hope you guys enjoy! 
> 
> A little background on me: I've been doing this whole writing thing since I was around 11, but, we're not gonna talk about the horrendous shit I used to write back then. This particular one, is a lovely little re-write I thought a lot of people would enjoy because I LOVE creating drama in my stories and ending chapters at the worst possible times. I hope I don't torture you too much! God knows I torture myself. (,: 
> 
> A little TW; This story will contain some gang violence ( how graphically depicted I really can't say, yet ) and some sensitive topics like self-harm, eating disorders, bullying, etc. Leave it to me to write something controversial strictly for entertainment purposes but hey man, we all do it from time to time. If this stuff bothers you please don't read!!! I would never purposefully upset anyone. 
> 
> Without further a do, now that you know what you're getting yourselves into, enjoy~

I liked the coffee shop down the street better than Starbuck's because there weren't a lot of people there. An ordinary person, one that most of the people here would have a hard time relating to, would sneer simply because the place looks like a massive shit show to anyone that wasn't, well, me. Even the people that hung out here could agree on one simple fact: Andy's was a dump. What once was probably a pretty little painted sign in the 70s, was now so faded that unless you talked to the manager you wouldn't know what to call the place. Even the sidewalk was beyond the classified state of "repairable." Every little shop on this side of the road was that way. They'd have to tear the old stuff out and lay down completely new sediment.

When you walked in, it smelled like stale cigarettes and over the counter cough medicine. There were cigarette butts all over the floor, because nobody knew how to use an ash tray and I'm pretty sure Andy was slipping Lean in the coffee, when there was any. I kinda appreciated his enthusiasm. The inviting calm of the shop was the only thing that kept me coming back. This was my home away from home.

I'll reinvent my previous statement; I liked the coffee shop down the street better than Starbuck's because there weren't ordinary people there. The people who came here understood why, and that's why I liked them better than Starbucks, too.

Axel was one of those people.

I was in my Junior year of High School. So far, it wasn't any better than the previous two at all. I could try to lie and say I enjoyed school, like 1 out of 3 teenagers usually do to make their parents think they're not doing drugs. Twilight Town was a mountain town riddled with constant precipitation. We weren't completely full of prostitution and bad drug habits, but we were so secluded that there wasn't much else to do. It was normal for the average parent to be concerned. The other two-thirds of that percentage were either actually happy with their high school careers, or they were like me. I only had one friend who actually enjoyed her classes ( and her classmates ) but she was blessedly ordinary, and I smudged eyeliner underneath my eyes to hide malnutrition from my averagely concerned parents. There was a significant difference there.

_My first day of being a Junior, was to say the least, not good._

I was walking down the hallway, probably seconds away from collapsing; nothing particularly unusual about that. My blonde hair was gelled up into spikes almost to perfection; Sora, my twin brother, complained that I tried too hard and I was making him look bad. We teased each other a lot. I had most of it swept to the side, with a little hill of spikes drooping towards the right side of my head and just the middle section of my hair side swept right over my eyes. In middle school, I guess I couldn't decide whether I wanted to take on the punk anarchist aesthetic, or let my inner text book emo really shine. Little me ended up deciding to go with both, and now it was just a bad habit I wasn't willing to let go of.

I could hear my thighs rubbing together. It was a pet peeve that I hadn't managed to stomp out yet. The hallways were intimidatingly silent, but anybody else would say they were noisy and crowded to the point where it was hard to breathe. I didn't see any of them. All I saw, was the distance between me and that tightly knit classroom I only had about 5 minutes to cram into. I knew it would only be so long before I ran into someone I knew, whether it was someone I used to call a friend or someone who would make my day just a little more "pleasant." I wasn't paying attention though; I was too focused on the incessant friction of my thighs grabbing at each other. Thighs were supposed to be a comfortable distance from each other, and the fact that they definitely weren't freaked me out more than I was willing to admit. I'd eaten one too many ice creams over the summer; it was irritating.

"Hey Roxas~" A voice full of hostility pulled me from my thoughts. My frantic aura slowly heightened into more or less, a heart attack. Seifier was the uncomfortable but reasonable neighborhood ass, as always.

"Hey." I replied briskly, quickening my pace as if that was going to help me get away. No one got away from him. No one worthwhile or physically competent. But I was neither.

I could hear the taller and more muscular teen's Steel toed boots clacking against the ceramic tile behind me, obviously attempting to corner me within the 3 minutes we had left to get to our homerooms before demerits were handed out. Lucky for me, he was unmethodical and lazy. He wasn't quite stupid and I'd hand it to him on a good day. My desperation to make a retreat amplified tenfold. I usually wouldn't be scared of him. Not if I didn't know I wasn't strong enough right now to put up a fight. But I did know, and it was mildly traumatizing.

"Have a nice summer?" I could hear the coy upturning of his lips masked behind me. His slyness haunted me with visible goosebumps. You usually got them when you heard good music or tasted Sea Salt Ice-cream for the first time, but not this time. These were the bad kind.

I clutched my Chemistry books closer to my chest. Knowledge was comforting. It was the only thing that made me feel separated from him, and also made me know that I was at least better at something than people who could lift 20 pounds with one arm or possessed good looks. I had neither of those. I used to have strength, at least. Of course, I'd like to lie to myself, but I would singlehandedly admit on any good day that I was physically meek and unattractive. I made mental illness look like it was contagious. If I sneezed in your direction, you were sure to begin contracting body dysmorphia and a calorie restriction complex. It was daunting, really, that I looked like I could be the cause of widespread contagion and apocalyptic terror.

"Not really," I mumbled apathetically. If I looked like I didn't care, I could hold onto a tiny portion of my pride. I dug my nails into the skin on my arm instinctively. I would take a fist to the gut proudly by any bully that had one original thought. Seifer was creative with punishments, but the source of his malicious intent were usually inspired by the Breakfast Club.

"That sucks, man. You know I care about you, right?" The taller and more assertive blonde wrapped his arm around my skinny shoulders and part of my neck, pulling me closer to his uninviting chest. If I had any bit of strength left in my skeletal frame, I would have kicked him in the nuts and ran but considering the possibility of me passing out after a 3 day fast, it was too risky. I may as well just take the ass beating while I still can.

A few snickers ensued from a girl named Fuu and a boy named Rai. I had no idea why they followed him so loyally. Supposedly, he was an admirable guy who saved the weaklings who won over his favor. I hadn't managed to, because in my "glory" days, we used to fight for Munny. Every summer, there was the Struggle Match, and me and Hayner would enter and always win. The fighting usually didn't stay in the arena; fighting for Munny was illegal anyway, so neither of us were too worried about getting into trouble outside of the ring. Two summers ago, we stopped entering because well, we stopped being friends. Then, I caught an eating disorder like a bad case of the flu, and bam. You have a friendless, weakened me and a bloodthirsty Seifer seeking to avenge his empty wallet. The outcome of this situation is obvious.

Or at least, it was obvious to me. Until someone I'd never seen before had Seifer sprawled out against one of the lockers faster than I could get a blink in.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" A tall redhead with a calm exterior grinned down at me. I could barely maintain basic human functions on a regular day, let alone in this situation. Was this my retribution? Was I on Punk'd? I had so many questions. Seifer was almost invisible to me at this point. Rai and Fuu stood there in an understandably frightened state, silently realizing the mortal peril in which they'd signed themselves up for. But I didn't sign up for this. I did NOT sign up for any of this. This was not on my class schedule.

"You're supposed to stand up for yourself, kid. Your friendly neighborhood Senior isn't always gonna be here to save your ass. C'mon."

I didn't even get to see the mortified look on Seifier's face before I was being whisked away. I was too shocked to ask any questions. All I knew was that my life was probably over.

* * *

The direness of the situation hadn't completely set in at this point. Here I was, wrist entangled in another, older boy's hand who I'm barely even acquainted with, being drug down the sidewalk of our school ( or my school. ) I hadn't completely decided whether this mythical creature was a visitor or a transfer or an actual student that I might have never noticed. But the latter seemed unlikely. I would have definitely noticed that hair.

I shook away my curiosity, as genuine as it was, and I decided to worry about more important things. School already started. I'm was being marked as absent, with a very pissed off Seifer probably mass murdering fellow meek looking bottle blonds in the hallways, in search of my corpse-like body to mangle it even further. Me and Sora's older brother Cloud, would be notified that I've been marked absent in a matter of minutes, at his job located more than an hour and a half away which will create a very pissed off Ex-Drill Sargent who would string me up in a tree and bludgeon me with a stick. I was going to die. And yet, I couldn't stop myself from focusing on this kid with flamingly bright red hair spiked back even more perfectly than mine, with the same matching black crap smudged underneath ( and on top I should add ) of his eyelids, seemingly dragging me away into the sunset never to be seen again.

_What the fuck is going on._

It finally hit me. I stopped right in my tracks ( or his tracks, if that's the way you wanna look at it, considering I was being practically _dragged_ ) and frantically slipped my wrist away from his velvety gloved fingers. "You—" I didn't even stutter this time. You'd think I'd be stuttering because I was a nervous wreck 25/8, but I wasn't. "You just did that. Why did you just do that? Do you know—" I was going into _fucking_ panic mode. He stopped me before my meltdown really transformed.

"Hey. Listen." That smirk managed to sneak its way onto his face again. His green eyes lit up every time he looked down at me. I noticed things like that, like the way people's eyes glazed over whenever they saw a cute dog or their boyfriend. I couldn't tell if he was upset or happy to see me. I couldn't imagine why. I was neither of those things; he didn't even know me. "It's gonna be fine. I'm not going anywhere and you're coming with me. Got it memorized?"

"I was happy with my older brother and public enemy number one not wanting to slit my throat. But now they do. So tell me where you think we're going. Because I need to go back there or else I'm gonna die and it's gonna be all your fault and—" Another hush, but this time one long gloved finger caresses my lips. The inappropriate and slightly intimate contact was a little frustrating. He was staring down at me, lips still coiled tightly into a smirk I thought would never disappear. I wasn't finished bitching him out yet, not even close. Or at least, I would have been a lot more confident if his eyes weren't so feline green. And his lips weren't so curved. And he wasn't so tall and skinny. It was one thing to be short and swollen like me, but he was tall, like the Empire State Building with red hair. I calmed down enough to silently envy his oblique thinness.

With a thin grimace, I crossed my arms over my chest and decided to hear him out. What did I have to lose at this point? It was too late to fix anything. I knew I was a dead man already. Maybe he'd be the one to call the morgue. He saved ( or ruined ) my life so he should be the one to do it.

"You're coming to my place. You can't go back there, not until things blow over. I already got you cleared in the Main Office. And don't worry, if your older brother has a problem he can talk to me." He was a little too confident on that last part.

I shooed the redhead's finger away from my chapped lips, "You're not serious, right? I don't even _know_ you." I scoffed, probably a little too snarky. I had a habit of being pretentious when I was upset.

"Completely." The signature smirk, it even possible, widened. His emerald orbs were glistening in what I'd decided was an uncanny persistence. I wouldn't exactly rule it out as a hamartia quite yet. "And the name's Axel. Get it memorized." "Axel", who I was pretty sure I was just gonna call "Catman" from now on, continued to walk ahead of me at a much faster pace.

"Okay Axel," I sighed, "Do you know me? There has to be a reason why you would rescue a random stranger in the hallway. Most people ignore that kind of stuff." I don't know why, but I wanted to trust him.

"Of course I do. You're Roxas. You never come to lunch anymore, you sit alone in the back of my Study Hall, and you looked like you needed a hand."

_What the fuck._


	2. Is it really called ice cream? Because I call it regret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! 
> 
> A few of you seemed to really like this story, so I'm not gonna give up on it quite yet. It's summer break, and what's better than writing about my two favorite gays over the break? Nothing, that's what. 
> 
> This one's gonna be a little heavy, so tw on that. But, I still hope you guys enjoy it!

The air turned cold in an instant; it was one of those willowy falls days when the breeze starts to pick up and the wet leaves dance to the forest floors from their branches in complete harmony. Though the entire world of isolation I built up with a great big wall was sent flying into chaos today, I couldn't help but notice the way Axel looked with the wind twisting through his spiky red mane like a whirlwind, and his Emerald green orbs shining with an adamance I no longer possessed. Just for a second, my anger departed with the breeze and the thistles and leaves it carried with it. 

 

_It didn't last long though._

 

"Have you been spying on me?" I snapped away from the scenery and barked up at the tall redhead. He winced at the sudden break in silence and most of all, at my ferocity that seemed to come out of nowhere. It was building up inside for a while and I had no other objective than to let it out; first, he drags me away from school, when I could have just taken the revenge beating from Seifer. Now, Cloud was pissed who was in fact way scarier than Seifer, and was going to maim me and hang me in a tree for all the world to see. I think I deserved some answers, regardless of how I got them. _Not that I was very intimidating._

 

"Well- Er- No. Not exactly. Chivalry's not dead, y'know. I'm just a considerate guy." The redhead sighed sarcastically and put his hands behind his head. My eye twitched impulsively; Axel was a bad liar. 

 

"Enough joking around. How do you know so much about me?" I furrowed my brow at him, the other one raised inquisitively, and glared up into Axel's soul piercing eyes. I never meant to sound so defensive all the time. It was a bad habit, better left unanalyzed, and I would have rather kept it that way. It was just so hard to trust people; not even my own family managed to interrogate my life choices out of me. In the 3 years I'd been doing it, no one managed to figure out or even notice that I spent my mornings skipping breakfast and my afternoons throwing up lunch. My twin brother Sora was pretty close to cracking the case due to a few mishaps on my part, but I didn't _want_ anyone to know. Axel was the only one that got this far. It was scary. 

 

"I used to watch your struggle matches. Every summer, without missing a trick." A smile of what seemed like the remembrance of a fond memory spread across Axel's pale face like wildfire. The warmth of his tone made my heart skip a beat; we'd both been silent for a while, but I welcomed him to continue with a gentle nod. 

 

"When me and you were younger, I always thought about talking to you at school. You never stopped moving, so I don't think you ever noticed me, until, of course, now. Those kids you hung with sure did keep you busy." He paused to grin down at me, and then continued. My heart sank at the thought of Hayner, Olette, and Pence, but the way the redhead flashed those pearly whites made the memory a little less painful. "Anyways- Every Street Kid wants to win a Struggle Match in this town, right? It's like- _the dream_. I was one of them." His gaze, which was adamantly directed towards me, switched gears to the ground and he chuckled a little. 

 

"So? Why didn't you just enter?" I didn't mean to, but I just blurted it out. My cheeks flushed with instant regret and I spun around on my foot to hide my embarrassment. 

 

To my own surprise, Axel chuckled at that, "Because you were too good at it and I knew I would lose the first time I saw you win." Another grin. My heart beat began to quicken rapidly; his words were distracting me from conducting an escape plan. I almost- wanted to stay. This was getting dangerous.

 

"After a while, I think I just got used to watching you win, and I got comfortable there. I opted out of fame and glory, and figured I'd route for you instead. It felt nice being somebody's fan, other than just a fan of myself." He laughed again, this time heartily, but his laughter soon faded with the wind and all of the negative emotions I'd felt towards him vanished, "Then you mysteriously disappeared that summer and you never entered again. I looked for you, and it didn't take too long to find you when I actually came to school. So, I check in on you from time to time. Call it spying, but you'd do the same if someone you looked up to dropped off the face of the earth, stopped talking to all his friends, and went from eating 3 trays of lunch to swallowing air and maybe a diet Pepsi every once in a great blue moon." 

 

A pang of guilt surged through my entire body; I didn't know what to say. It was true that I changed a lot in recent years. It started with making these ridiculous excuses that even I had a hard time believing. "I'm busy that day, sorry guys." or "Can we reschedule? Cloud needs some more hands at home." I couldn't even remember the amount of times I used that last one. My 3 best friends almost believed me, until I started dodging them after school too. The more I pushed Hayner, Pence, and Olette away, the more they stopped asking, and the less I ate. It's what I wanted; I needed something to punish myself for and I didn't want them to have to deal with what I was about to put myself through. Once my excuses stopped being believable, me, Hayner, Pence, and Olette stopped existing. We passed each other often in the hallways and we even had a few classes together, but none of us ever talked. It hit Hayner the hardest when I was too vitamin deficient to sign up for the Struggle Match the summer after Freshman year. And others too, apparently... Something I never knew. 

 

I couldn't keep thinking about this, so I decided to have some fun. "Looked up to me~?" I finally returned that stupid grin that was constantly plastered on Axel's face and put my hands behind my head. The redhead's face flushed a bit and he bit his lip. 

 

"Shut up. Let's go." I didn't think it was possible, but his grin stretched wider than before, and he shook his head, spinning around on one heeled boot to walk ahead of me again. I followed hesitantly, but eventually shrugged it off. 

 

"Fine, but you're buying me ice cream."

 


End file.
